Posts by Gannon (J.) Dick

Facebook testing $100 fee to mail Mark Zuckerberg

Re: Cheap at..

Well, if you abreviate ... We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram

Texas schoolgirl loses case over RFID tag suspension

Re: But is for Kids Safty!!!!

Texas is Business Friendly.

What they heard: "Perhaps they ought to hire the students out as Escorts"

Pssst El Reg Staff

Time to lose the "I (heart) Andrew" badges,

It stems from the belief that the tags represent the 'the mark of the beast' quoted in the Bible's Book of Revelation 13:16-18

A pre-ticked box in web forms should NOT mean consent - EU report

Re: @Peter Gathercole - @AC

Hang on to that boss.

Even if he starts making comments about "full time monkey breeding rates" the occasional truth is a precious thing from the Managerial Class.

Do Not Call Register operator breaches Register

El Reg

I guess that depends on what you call them. I imagine they've been called a lot of things though, so try and keep it clever. Obviously they are not here to entertain their readers. Oops. Let me know on the fine.

Google boss lands in North Korea for humanitarian mission

Misunderstanding

He was going to Cleveland. I told him not to use Apple Maps, look what happened to me!

-- Curiosity the Mars Rover, now a snowplough in Indianapolis

Eric Schmidt's Norks outing poorly timed, tuts US govt

Re: Poor timing?

Looking forward, is there ever a *good* time for Eric Schmidt to return ? Surely it must be possible to land a plane under a rock.

US Dept for Homeland Security shafted by trivial web bug

Re: obligatory xkcd ref

Perfect.

Obviously CIA Posters are very "well hung" and no doubt the DHS would love to get their hands on them.

Government Transparancy flies Commercial I always say.

Re: PHP? Really?

These are people who touch your junk to make sure it's real. You'd think they would know that about programming languages ... Ah, there's the flaw, DHS is a think-free zone.

Hm, nice idea that. But somebody's already doing it less well

Rule of Law for Dummies (and Economists)

It seems to me that MBA's and stray dogs are quite incapable of comprehending the Ten Commandments when they are presented in the reverse order.

Capitalist Bastards, milkshakes for everyone* !

* Stray dogs know a PR Problem when they see one; there will be extras.

AC's need love too

I gave you a badly needed upvote on the all too fleeting mention of Economists and graves in the same sentance. Where were you when the Champagne Bottle was empty day before yesterday ?

What Compsci textbooks don't tell you: Real world code sucks

Re: Flawed Assumption

"The technology people employed at these companies are considered to be the very best, if only because the pay tends to be so good."

And only, too

ICANN'T believe it's not Apple: Vatican wins domain-handout lottery

Wondering ...

Is (dot) cixelsyd taken ?

Facebook ditches mobile HTML with native Android app

A new Low in Silo.

see title.

Copyright trolls, biz scum, freetards - it's NOT black and white

Keyboards

The Copyright Symbol is not a key, but rather a keyboard macro, if you know (or care) what a "keyboard macro" is. Why are the Dollar and Euro keys instead of Currency Symbol (for latest data revision) which is not a key ? WTF does the "Windows" key do ?

Reinvented Wheels roll too ? Came right out of nowhere.

Tax Evasion, sorry, Avoidance and "factory slaves" ? Same ethic at work, I'm afraid.

.

Worldwide Gmail crash was due to Google Sync bug

Re: That just proves..

"My home systems are far more sensitive than my email. Its all a compromise and its quite a complicated calculation."

I can't see how it's complicated if the people Zuck and Facebook call "Dumb Fucks" all can do it.

Oh wait, I see what you mean.

Ready for ANOTHER patent war? Apple 'invents' wireless charging

Re: @Tony Rogerson

I'll remember not to use any Currency Symbols when I reference "Foxconn Labor Policy" or "Apple Human Resources" then.

Apple, Samsung patent judge: 'I feel like I'm in Groundhog Day here'

Re: Easy answer

There's a robot for every robot, or so they say.

Republican staffer fired for copyright reform suggestions

Ignore the Power Players, Love the Publishers

My suggestion for Copyright Reform is simple.

Stripping a Copyright Notice is wrong, but who owns the Copyright Glyph ?

The original author, that's who, and the glyph can easily be made into a hyperlink which points to derivative works, "dogfood of value" and the Copyright Notice is preserved. Any Publisher would be happy to endure that tiny stick with the hope of sharing that big fat, tasty carrot.

Of course the same thing goes for Registered or Trademark Symbols.

Report blasts NASA for 'lack of consensus' on goals, plans

NASA

"A new US government report offers a damning assessment of the strategic direction and management of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), painting the space agency as a rudderless organization whose lack of well-defined goals could threaten US leadership in space sciences."

In the interest of fairness:

http://stratml.hyperbase.com/NASA2011/NASA2011.html

Judge for yourself if the assessment is accurate and complete.

Samsung: Demand for mobes forced 16hr days on factory slaves

Re: Commentards - this isn't about Apple vs. Samsung

"Santa's Sweatshop"

You are a man after my own heart Joe, BTW, sorry about that perverse sense of humor module which goes along with the heart module apparently it is a package deal.

Moving on, the difference between Santa and Multinationals is that Santa has never looked back at last year's naughty/nice list, much to the relief of the little ones (no names, you know who you are).

It is an epic philosophical battle between TL;DR and "the devil is in the details". But it's not entertainment because we know who wins. No Popcorn necessary. OTOH, every beer consumed, premium or otherwise, is sacred progress in the liberal advancement of the Human Condition. Drink up.

100 % here too.

Who in their right minds would imagine that a post WWII Industry could be created without the foresight to understand that "factory slaves" are indeed slaves and that a shameful immoral outcome was unexpected.

Silicon Valley: Allocation of your attention span, no matter how infuriatingly short, is no substitute for thinking.

Google 'wants to dodge consent decree' in any FTC antitrust deal

Re: Do no evil

If I get that Edmund Burke guy right, then the FTC must be Good Men hard at work.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

Oops. Sorry Burke didn't say that. Sorry.

He did say:

"It cannot at this time be too often repeated; line upon line; precept upon precept; until it comes into the currency of a proverb, To innovate is not to reform"

Even better, I think.

Android users: More of them than fanbois, but they don't use the web

Re: I have an Android

I'm a bit puzzled why this should be "bad news for Google".

It seems to me that the more users they have content with the shallow Google defaults, the better the "wide spread adoption" criterion for accessable deep data looks. Sort of "all of your birdbaths are belong to us and our Silent Majority" metric skewing method. A new Patent is hardly bad news, unless Apple already snagged that one.

ESO's nine-gigapixel galactic image has 84 MILLION stars

Wait !!!!!

83,999,997, ... better hold on to that Press Release just a momment ... 83,999,998, 83,999,999 ... oops.

40,000 sign petition to oust Rep. Paul 'pit of hell' Broun

Re: Earth is 9,000 years old...

Windows ME strikes again

Foxconn denies factory labor strike reports

Re: “China's state-run Xinhua news agency"

One hopes that El Reg will show the same level of sensitivity for its readers with the News-Run State Agencies we have in the US and Europe.

Google finds MORE slurped Street View data down under

Re: "[O]ur systems were not able to recognize them as Australian"

It's all the "Mates". Google has written off Australia as a Nation of Incompetent Chess Fanatics. If Oz didn't have beer they'd have already been tossed from the UN.

‘Cash for comment’ journos, bloggers under spotlight in Oracle-v-Google

IANAL - so why waste time on research

All the Latin mumbo jumbo is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola

Copyright bot boots NASA rover vid off YouTube

Big Misunderstanding

YouTube was just time shifting the Copyright forward until Mars could be safely declared an orphan work.

Gotta go ... Google just sent Napoleon to Corsica where he can't make trouble ...

Outlook.com launch a gold rush for jokers, spammers

Name Taken ?

There are some tricks to not having your name taken.

Then again when I complained 50 years ago mom told me it was not too late to go back to her first choice:

Pius XII.

Apple, Samsung begin battle for billions in US patent smackdown

Just wondering.

If you were reinventing the wheel, wouldn't rounded corners make a square one roll way better ?

Beeb stuffs $21tn into Olympic-sized swimming pools

Oops.

And the breakdown by Bank Account of the persons mentioned or appearing (excluding parachutists) in the Opening Ceremonies is ...

El Reg, I've pushed the submit button several times. Nothing is happening. What's Up ?

Judge: Apple must run ads saying Samsung DIDN'T copy the iPad

What next? Macs aren't very good value for money?

Not novel. Very obvious. Working its way up the list of things to Patent I expect.

Google ordered to censor 'torrent', 'megaupload' and more words

Sorry

Self-absorbed twits not allowed to do as they damn please. Film at 11 all next month.

Wait for it: Eric is preparing his "creep right up to the line" speech, and while you wait, imagine that no Supreme Court anywhere censored Google for anything ... Would that be Net Neutrality ? No it would be a data silo wasteland worthy of your worst nightmare.

Google are self-appointed champions of the worst tyranny cyberspace has to offer.

Skyhook offers 'Always-On' background STALKING feature

Re: How?

Think I have this one figured out ...

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_cruising_altitude_of_a_jumbo_jet_in_km

says: About 39,000 feet.

article says: works to 40,000 feet

Clearly their Marketing Department is high.

It costs $450 in marketing to make someone buy a $49 Nokia Lumia

Re: Microsoft moves ops to Donner Pass

Love it ... Donner Pass, the new Silicon Valley

Apple rejoins EPEAT green tech cert program

Cupertino, World Class AOONS

"Other officials will doubtless be pleased, as well. Many governmental bodies require EPEAT certification for IT purchases, including the US Department of Defense, NASA, Homeland Security, and the governments of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/13/kitsap_honour/

UK's brazen copyright land grab sneaked into Enterprise Bill

Re: Well now

CC-BY-NC is the (rather sensible, I thought) Australian solution.

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-egov-ig/2012Jul/0006.html

It seems to me the sensible part is thinking a move ahead. There is no Judge either in the UK, Australia nor most jurisdictions who will not accept de facto sovereignty of the sovereign. Copyright Holders forget that they are protected by Sovereigns not the Sovereigns themselves. When it comes time for the Royal Navy to drag an Aircraft Carrier into Court to "prove" they have them, then the Courts have lost all legitimacy.

Two Sides

There will be no end to Intellectual Property disputes until the concept of Intellectual Currency arises.

The common wisdom of self-interest leads to cognitive dissonance.

1. Copyrighted documents, pictures, etc. have no existential value - they are all entropy and no enthalpy, with immutable value out of time.

2. Copyrighted documents, pictures, etc. are all enthalpy, no entropy, with immutable duplication rights out of time.

The Web lacks (queue the Fanboi Flame) any democratic principle to resolve this issue "fairly". Certainly, information handling has methods, but, others have put it better ...

===================

John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich: "Egad sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox." John Wilkes: "That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."

===================

"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." Ralph Waldo Emerson

===================

My point, simply: Anything you or Google "discover" on the Web is Intellectual Currency, not Intellectual Property. It is the difference between property rights and fishing rights.

Sorry, Andrew, I know how you Brits wish we Americans would just go away. But you've had the Jubilee, and we're having Woodie Guthrie's 100th Birthday Party this Saturday (Bastille Day, for irony fans)

============================

As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."

But on the other side it didn't say nothing,

That side was made for you and me.

http://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/This_Land.htm

============================

Finnish boffins don tinfoil hats, admit Northern Lights are noisy

For a good time call Aurora Borealis

Naturally the wall note said nothing about the clap. No negativity for the Olympics, I imagine.

Google expected to cough measly $22.5m for Safari privacy gaffe

Silicon Valley: The Play Money Wasteland

When the personal information of your competitors' products becomes currency, and your supply chain starts with slave labour like conditions you have nothing advanced to offer the human race. This has all been tried before.

Euro Parliament kills ACTA treaty before court can look at it

Re: If the EU rejects it ...

"I don't see a majority opposed to all possible forms of copyright"

Where do you see any "Internet" majority anywhere ? Like it or not, the Web has many fiercely anti-democratic methods, and the Fanboy-Industrial Complex is no less a threat than the Military-Industrial Complex ever was.

Can you judge a man by his Twitter followers?

Silly Physicists

... Facebook is a testament to the obvious: You can tell a Higgs Boson by it's quack and ducky sort of walk. Everybody knows this. Sheesh.

Big Data megaslurp 'to save UK.gov £30 BILLION pa', raves thinktank

The Magna Carta is so 1215 A.D.

Data trends are in uniform motion (c.f. Newton's First Law). Newton sexed up Cannon Balls by suggesting that you put the Cannon Balls in a Cannon, and you could control the Cannon. He did not presume to tell Governments what they could and could not do with Cannon Balls and Cannons.

Big Data Alchemy is different ... add money and uniform motion turns into Ice Cream. It turns out that if you add money to anything the result is Ice Cream, just ask any Economic Man. But do not ask him to share any of his Ice Cream, nor suggest that it is everybody's Ice Cream. That would be like Newton telling the Government what to do with Cannons (c.f. Title).

Activists unite, declare 'Internet Freedom'

Re: Free as in...

Your buddy Eric is at it again, Andrew. He was quoted by Bloomberg (I'll paraphrase)

"Thank you for being useful idiots, now grow up."

His contention was that web searches give you a lot of slanted, worthless information and Google and others were working hard to "reverse rank" the noise, but in the meantime, people needed to understand that this was very hard, don't believe everything you read, etc..

This, said earlier, would have meant wholesale rejection of the Google search method at the outset.

Freedom is only worth guarding for truth's sake.

UK.gov proposes massive copyright land snatch

Land Grab or Blank Titles ?

If you define a lending library by its revenue stream (the occasional fine) and classify other assets (the books, films, etc) as undeveloped resources, then by wilful ignorance alone you allow maintenance of the fiction that IP is either been transferred to some big dog for its own protection or orphan.

This used to be known as the Maverick Fiction in the US. A "Maverick" is an unbranded calf, or at least it used to be before the Republicans went to work on it. Poor Sam Maverick would not even recognize himself.

Facebook phone app attempts to seize ALL YOUR MAIL

Re: Computer misuse

Tristan da Cunha, yes but the Government of St. Helena sponsors the internet so it is only fair you give them warning. Oh, and penguins would have to abandon formal wear in favour of hoodies. Of course he'd have the option of swimming home, we are not barbarians.

I think it means ...

... we'll take your naked pictures of Scarlett Johansson and substitute naked pictures of The Zuck.

Six years in prison or a lifetime of therapy.

Texan team paints batteries onto beer steins

Re: "discharged a steady 2.4 volts for six hours"

This is a trick question. "Useful device" and "smart phone" in the same sentence gets them every time.

"how long could you run a smart phone (or other useful device)"